


in spite of all my fears (i see it all so clear)

by artificer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Grad School, Alternate Universe - Human, Cheesy Romance Tropes, F/F, Fantasies of Wealth and Privilege, Trope Soup, neuroatypical character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificer/pseuds/artificer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's possible that Lydia's life is falling apart. In fact, with each passing day, the probability of total collapse increases exponentially.</p>
<p>She tells herself that she's just paying her dues. Once she advances to candidacy, once she writes her dissertation, once she gets her doctorate, gets a job, gets tenure—everything will be better. Sure, Lydia feels terrible about just about everything just about one hundred percent of the time, but that’s fine because this misery is temporary.</p>
<p>It’s temporary. It has to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in spite of all my fears (i see it all so clear)

**Author's Note:**

> To be perfectly honest, I haven't watched Teen Wolf since Allison died, so I'm not entirely sure how this fic happened. I know there are a million amazing Allydia coffee shop AUs, and I've read many of them. But I guess I wanted to try my hand at the genre, too.
> 
> Updates might be a little sporadic because I, like Lydia, am a harried grad student. Though not quite as harried. On that note, hopefully there's a degree of verisimilitude as to what it's like to be a doctoral student in MIT's math department, but there are probably inaccuracies, seeing as I study film on the opposite coast. Many thanks to Sarah for providing information about neighborhoods/life in Boston.
> 
> The title is from "Crystals" by Of Monsters and Men. Great song, 10/10, A+, do recommend. (I'm also in the process of putting together a full mix for this fic. Should have a link by the time the next chapter is ready.)

Lydia Martin is having a terrible week. She has three problem sets due in the next forty-eight hours, and she has started exactly one of them. The first draft of her prospectus is due next week, and it’s still a mess. Not to mention, she’s somehow supposed to find time grade forty midterms for the undergraduate Calculus II class she TAs. She’s stressed and exhausted and she barely remembers the color of her sheets, let alone the last time she changed them. Though, to be fair, it’s really not just this week.

Lydia is having a terrible semester. She’s taking more units than anyone else in the department while working twenty hours a week. Now that she’s in the second year of her PhD, she’s gearing up to start her dissertation. She’s expected to know where she wants to go and how to get there, but she’s having enough trouble trying to cobble her prospectus together.

Lydia’s having a terrible year, truth be told. She tells herself that she's just paying her dues. Once she advances to candidacy, once she writes her dissertation, once she gets her doctorate, gets a job, gets _tenure_ —everything will be better.

Sure, Lydia feels terrible about just about everything just about one hundred percent of the time, but that’s fine because this misery is temporary.

It’s temporary. It has to be.

\---

On Wednesday morning, the T breaks down, and Lydia takes an over-crowded bus across the Charles River. She’s running late by the time she gets to Cambridge, and she weighs her options. Normally she’d get her coffee from the math department’s grad lounge, but that’s halfway across campus. However, there’s no way she’s going to make it through two hours of sniveling undergrads who only take calculus because it’s a requirement without her daily dose of caffeine.

Across the street, there’s a little indie coffee shop she’s been meaning to try. Café d’Argent, the sign reads. Lydia makes up her mind and runs through the intersection.

The café is cute without being cutesy. It’s spacious and modern, with white walls, pastel accents, and wrought-iron tables. If anything, it could use a dash of color.

When she reaches the counter, Lydia stares blankly at the chalkboard on the wall. Her eyes glaze over the handwritten list of drinks and focus instead on the decorative chalk flourishes and sweeping arabesques. She stares at the spiraling curves, pictures Riemann sums, and tries to calculate the integral through sight alone.

“What would you like?”

Lydia blinks out of her reverie, focusing on the girl in front of her. About her age, she thinks, maybe older. Her sweater and blouse power-clash in two patterns of plaid. She’s brunette and cute and interminably patient. Lydia coughs, once, to buy herself time before she’s forced to admit, “You know, I have no idea. Caffeine? A lot of it.”

The barista assesses her thoughtfully. “Something sweet?”

“Yes, please.”

“Any allergies?”

“Shellfish, but I doubt you’re planning to put lobster in my coffee.”

“You never know,” the barista grins, dimples and all. “Three shots okay?”

“Can you make it four?” Lydia begs.

“I’ll see what I can do. To go?”

“Unfortunately,” Lydia confirms. She looks around the room—brightly lit, blessedly empty—and imagines grading exams or working on problem sets here. It would be nice, she thinks, a brief reprieve from the endless stress and shit that come with working on campus. Maybe she’ll come back, if the coffee’s good.

“Coming right up,” the barista says. She grabs a 20-ounce paper cup before heading over to the espresso machine.

Lydia waits at the counter, trying not to think about her impending lesson. There’s soft indie music emanating from unseen speakers. It’s nice. It suits this place; it suits the cute barista. And just like that, Lydia’s eyes are drawn back to the girl brewing her coffee. She watches her hands—long fingers, deft movements—and sighs as she reminds herself that ogling the barista isn’t exactly polite.

Soon enough, the barista comes back to the register and offers Lydia the open cup. There’s a leaf etched in the foam, willowy, impressionistic, and altogether charming. “It’s a quadruple shot hazelnut mocha,” the barista explains. “What do you think?”

Lydia actually groans when she takes the first sip.

“That good, huh?”

“You’re my new best friend,” Lydia informs her. “Seriously. This tastes like espresso-infused Nutella. I don’t think I’ve had coffee this good since, well, ever.”

“Glad to hear it. It’s a new recipe.”

“Yours?” Lydia asks, curious in spite of herself.

She nods. “Yeah. They’re actually… all my recipes.”

“Are you the manager?”

“Owner, actually.”

“Wow,” Lydia whistles, impressed. She wonders how a girl who can’t possibly be older than twenty-five came into possession of a boutique coffee shop during a double-dip recession. When she finally comes to her senses—a difficult feat, given her severe sleep-deprivation—she asks, “How much do I owe you?”

The number is low—hideously so for a beverage so heavenly—so Lydia stuffs two extra dollars in the tip jar. “Thank you,” she says, surprised by the force of her own sincerity.

“You can thank me by coming back,” the girl smiles. “Bring your friends, family, casual acquaintances, et cetera.”

“I will,” Lydia replies, and she means it.

\---

Lydia may have been the cool girl in high school, but here, in MIT’s math department, she feels more like the mythical fake geek girl. Or, at least, that’s how most of the men treat her. She has made enemies of half the men in her cohort, and as for professors, well. She’s had to deal with condescension from Adrian Harris and sexual harassment from Peter Hale. There are a few exceptions. Stiles Stilinski, a first-year in applied physics, is probably her best friend at MIT. She has collaborated with Danny Mahealani over in computer science on a few modeling projects. She has developed a grudging friendship with Dr. Hale’s grumpy nephew Derek, who is finishing up his masters in architecture and always happens to go to the library at the same times Lydia does.

She hasn’t had an issue with Dr. Deaton, her academic advisor and the chair of her dissertation committee, but she can’t help feeling he’s judging her for other sins. Like now, for example, as he peers at her over the brim of a manila folder, asking, “Remind me again, Lydia, how old you are?”

“Twenty-four,” Lydia replies tightly. She went to Caltech for undergrad and submatriculated, receiving her masters degree at the same time as her bachelors. She went straight through to this PhD program, and although she didn’t realize it when she was applying, that puts her in a distinct minority. She is the youngest person in her cohort, and she’s just a few years older than most of her students. No matter how mature she acts, people treat her like she’s a kid playing dress-up.

Deaton would never say it to her face, but it’s clear, sometimes, in the way he frowns at her. He thinks she’s young, too young, and not the wunderkind she used to be.

Lydia was the top of her class in high school, after all, but here, she’s just trying to keep up.

“If you follow this timeline and complete your dissertation in two years, you’ll have your doctorate at twenty-six, then,” he tells her, needlessly, as if she doesn’t know the math.

She nods politely. “I’m trying to get a start on the Fields Medal,” she tells him. She has said it so many times that she’s not even sure if she’s joking anymore.

Deaton raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s certainly a noble goal.”

“It’s been my dream since I was twelve,” and that, at least, is true. She remembers printing out a photo of the medal and hanging it on the wall of her childhood bedroom. She remembers doing the math then, too, and realizing that, because the medal is only awarded every four years, her first chance will be 2018, and there will only be a few more chances before she hits forty, the age limit for the award.

“Well,” Deaton clears his throat, and the noise rips her from her reverie. “The timeline certainly seems realistic. When do you expect to have your prospectus drafted?”

“Next week.” That is, after all, the deadline.

“You’re making good progress?”

Lydia nods, a sharp, jerky motion. She doesn’t trust her voice not to betray the fact that she has barely started.

“Do you have any questions?”

That’s precisely the problem. Lydia doesn’t have any questions, but she doesn’t have any idea what she’s doing, either. Every time she tries to work on her prospectus—or think about her dissertation at all, really—it’s like a fogged glass door slides shut in her brain. She’s stuck there, trying to make out shapes through the diffuse fog of her anxiety, and no matter what she does, she can’t break through. She has a research question, she has done the background research, and she knows the math, she does, but she just can’t make sense of any of it. She can’t think clearly about any of this.

She should be _better_ than this.

But the truth is, she’s really not sure she is. Yet another relic of her high school days, her effortless self-confidence has long since turned to ash, but she does remember how to play the part.

Lydia wears her picture perfect smile as easily as the pink lipstick that accompanies it. “No,” she says, “no questions at all.”

\---

On her way to the bus stop, Lydia passes by Café d’Argent. She thinks about going in for another coffee. She’s still jittery, but she thinks it’s from nerves rather than caffeine, and she feels the crash coming. She glances through the window; all the tables are full. She looks to the counter, sees a young, curly-haired man, and feels a pang of disappointment before she realizes what— _who_ —she’s even looking for.

She shoves her hands in her pockets, and she keeps walking.

\---

She goes home to her Somerville apartment, just off Davis Square. It’s a luxurious loft, well beyond the means of most graduate students, paid for by her father’s guilty sense of parental obligation.

Prada barks when she comes in and yips at her heels until Lydia crouches down and scratches the spot between Prada’s ears. It’s nice to know there’s someone who doesn’t want or expect anything from her.

She considers going to her desk, booting up her laptop, and staring at the document titled “Martin – Prospectus.docx.” She considers scouring her notes and forcing words on a page. She considers tearing her hair out and throwing books against the wall. She considers trying, fighting, clawing her way out of the senseless funk she has fallen into.

Instead, she goes to her bedroom.

She lies down on her spacious bed and pulls a blanket up over her head. Exhaustion settles deep in the marrow of her bones.

Later, after staring at the uneven knit of the blanket for what might have been hours or minutes, she reaches for her phone. She’s tired and maybe a little sad, and she doesn’t know what to do. So she calls her mother, and she waits through four shrill rings before it goes to voicemail. She’s not surprised, not really.

She falls asleep with Prada curled against her side.

\---

When she wakes, it’s far from morning. Or, to be precise, it’s well into the morning but still hours before sunrise. Lydia feels stiff and achy, and there’s a taste in her mouth like something crawled in and died there. She watches the shadows on the wall, grotesque shapes, and thinks they might haunt her dreams if she tried to sleep again.

Better not to try.

So she takes a hot shower, changes into clean clothes, and puts on a fresh coat of lipstick, even though she has no intention of leaving the house. She feels better—scalding water, soft cotton, and overpriced cosmetics always help.

In the kitchen, she puts on a pot of coffee and finds a power bar in the depths of her pantry. After she takes care of Prada, she munches on the power bar and waits for her coffee to finish brewing. She thinks in numbers rather than words, and she thinks she knows what to do next.

Her coffee, when it’s ready, is a far cry from what she drank this morning. It’s an expensive Viennese blend her father sent her last Christmas, mixed with just a touch of cream, but it’s a little too bitter for her liking. She thinks she must have brewed it too strong. But it does the job, and that’s what she needs.

It’s fine, she tells herself. This is temporary. This stress will pass, and everything will be fine. She just has to take the first step—and the next one, after that.

So she goes to her desk, starts up her aging laptop, and pulls up her prospectus. She lays out two years of notebooks on her desk, and she forces herself to think through the material. She doesn’t tear out her hair or throw her books against the wall.

She tries. She fights. She claws her way out.

Because this is what Lydia does:

She breaks, and she puts herself together again.


End file.
